Friday, January 7, 2011

Quote Of The Day

In an article on Bill Daley, President Obama's choice to replace Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff, jm writes at Corrente:

Which bring us back to the president and today's announcement concerning his new BFF, Bill Daley. I've been holding off commenting on the "Obama's a conservative" meme because I find it less than satisfying. Obama is not a conservative. My 82 year old father is a conservative. Despite a few less-than-enlightened views on things in general, he is at heart a well intentioned and generous person who has lent a hand on numerous occasions to individuals in need. There is nothing well intentioned or generous about Obama. Neither is there is anything classically conservative about him. What is he conserving? Traditional values? Bullshit. Political comity and collegiality? Only if you share his belief in the superiority of the ruling class. The whole vocabulary of "liberal versus conservative" is utterly inadequate for describing the current dynamic of how we are ruled. The appointment of Daley as his caporegime puts this dynamic on display and shows, without doubt, Obama's true colors [Ha! Colors! I'm a racist]. It doesn't matter which party is in charge. Either way, the powers-that-be will attempt to rob us blind.

Obama is a blood sucking corporatist scumbag marking time as the imperial manager, doing the will of our owners, until he can retire and take his place on various boards of directors, go on the speaking circuit, maybe do a little discreet lobbying here and there, etc. You know, make some real money. So what if some little people have to suffer and die as a result of his actions. It's the way the big boys do business.

He gets Obama as right as anyone has. There are people, the truly clueless ones, who ask why Obama would choose to be a one-term President, or why he'd sell out his party and his supporters for these people (with the obvious implication of their question being that this is the best that anyone could do). This is the answer. He stands to become one of them when he's done. If you don't believe that, look what his predecessors have done. Jimmy Carter largely avoided this, and George H.W. Bush was already plenty rich, but among those who weren't, all have done a quick book and tour to cash in on their new fame, with plenty of speaking engagements for truly obscene amounts of money.

That's the motivation.

So, yes, Obama is a con artist. He has the job, and soon he'll have the money. Meanwhile, he's living pretty well already.

It's so simple that in order to miss it, you almost have to want to not see it. That's probably why I haven't mentioned it lately. That, plus all the clueless abusive assholes who always show up when I point out this obvious thing.

UPDATE: Added that bit about the obvious implications. Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald has summed this thing up pretty well, when it comes to the implications of Daley's appointment:

Shipping in a JP Morgan executive to be White House Chief of Staff isn't a cause of any of this; it's just a nice symbol for what our political culture is, more than ever in the Era of Change. It's the other side of the revolving door that sent Peter Orszag to his multi-million-dollar a year reward at Citigroup for his 18 months in an administration which lavished that bank will all sorts of gifts. Getting exercised about Bill Daley's empowerment is like going to the beach and being angry that it's full of sand: this appointment is the inevitable by-product of the essence of Washington and of the Obama presidency. It's what they do and who they are. As Matt Stoller suggested, the most surprising thing about the Daley pick is that he has no Goldman Sachs experience.

There are certainly people who are too young, or too foreign, to have yet worked out that this is the way things are in Washington, DC, but it shouldn't be mysterious to any American who is over thirty and has received anything close to an education. Our system rewards this kind of behavior, and it's only when voters start acknowledging this and demand that things change that it will. Voting for people because of some feeling of identity (no matter if it's about race, religion, or party affiliation), or for some superficial reason like giving a nice speech is not going to get it done. Only making your congressmen aware that their jobs depend on it is going to have even a chance of making reform happen.